Ideas, please, for turning angel food cake into birthday cake
I made the angel food last night, added shaved Scharfenberger. Tonight, I am planing to split it horizontally and frost w/ a 7-minute frosting for my husband's b-day.
Has anyone ever experimented w/ adding chocolate to a meringue-type frosting? Any other suggestions to jazz up the white stuff a little? I prefer not to put a buttery frosting on angel food. (I made use of the Lobel's $50 credit, so we are going to have plenty of sat fat tonight!)
Thanks!
danna
Aug 26, 2003 11:25AM
Not exactly low-fat, but we really enjoyed the "tiramisu" made with the recipe below.
Link: http://www.epicurious.com/run/recipe/...
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My mother used to frost angel food cake with boiled frosting flavored with peppermint and used a dot of red food coloring to turn the frosting pink. We loved it (I probably still would), but I'm not sure how your husband would receive a pink birthday cake. Mint green? Mint and chocolate are buddies.
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melting some chocolate, even unsweetened, and letting it drip down the sweet white-frosted cake looks great - my family's fave look in the 60s, when we frosted choc cakes with white mountain.
what about some choc mousse or other filling between the layers to moisten the cake up and break up the color pattern?
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Oooh, good idea. I have about an oz. of Shcarf. left.
I bought some nice cherries at lunchtime, so now I'm contemplating crushing some of them, blending w/ a cup of so of the white mountain to use for filling, then frosting w/ the white stuff (possibly use Deb's food coloring idea below), drizzle w/ chocolate and garnish w/ whole cherries. What do you think?
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sounds pretty and CHARMINGLY garish at the same time! These are sweet cherries? YOu might want to boost up their flavor with almond extract or kirsch, even flame the cherries, I dont know how the juiciness of all this would interact with your white mountain - maybe layer the crushed up cherries on the cake (its juice could soak down into the cake) then the frosting over that between thelayers? also dont know how the cherry flavor and mint would interact, and youd want to hold white frosting aside for your filling if you are mixing with cherries.
Maybe a real pastry person will weigh in here to give you some better advice! Best of luck and I hope you will tell us what you do!
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I agree -- rather than messing up a good thing (7 minute frosting is in my Greatest Hits repetoire) with cocoa, which would only ruin the texture and provide little chocolate flavor (remember chocolate flavor is delivered by fat, so in the fat-free environment of 7-minute frosing you'd get a slightly bitter brownish 7-minute frosting, not a true chocolate flavor).
Instead, take jen kalb's idea of drizzing chocolate to new heights! You can either melt bittersweet chocolate with a little corn syrup and butter to make a glaze (yum), or actually make a thin chocolate glaze recipe, and then hold the spoon high over the frosted cake and drizzle vertically down the sides and into the center of the cake. Looks fantastic, and tastes wonderful.
I also LOVE cherry-nut 7-minute frosting. Chop up candied (not marschino, but the candied-fruit fruitcake kind of candied cherries) cherries and pecans or walnuts and mix into the frosting. About 1/4 cup of each (this is straight from Betty Crocker). If you family likes candied cherries and doesn't mind nuts in their frosting (some people hate messing with the smooth fluffiness of 7-minute, so assess beforehand) this make a fantastic filling. I'd frost the top of the angelfood cake with plain non-cherry/nut frosting, however, for a nice presentation.
Also a note on filling an angel food -- have you ever split the cake horizontally and filled it before? Perhaps you're a pro at it -- but I consider it no easy task to get the two tall layers to sit well and level again. Since the angel food is as tall as it is wide, it's more of a tower than a layer cake -- fill very carefully so you don't get the Leaning Tower of Angel Food.
I rarely fill angel food cakes -- the charm of them is their height and towery perfection, in my book. Also, I think the ratio of cake to frosting is already pretty low, since the high sides, top, and center hole are already iced too.
The only way I fill angel food cakes is another old Betty Crocker recipe -- the "Tunnel of Fudge Cake " (or straweberry cream, or rum-flavored cream, etc, you get the idea.) This is not easy, either, and is perhaps more suited to a child's birthday party. The top is sliced off the angel food cake -- measure about a two-inch slab. Set aside, and cut a square-shaped "tunnel" all aroound, leaving an inch-thick wall on either side of the cake and on the bottom to hold the filling in. It's not easy to get the floor of this square-shaped trench to be flat and have 90-degree sides, but it's possible with good breadknife and some forks for help. Fill this circular trench with stiff chocolate mousse, or strawberry whipped cream, etc, you get the idea, and then top with the reserved top layer. Frost the outside as usual. Kids love this -- but the desert ends up being more pudding or whipped cream than it is cake.
I realize there's another "Tunnel of Fudge" recipe for a Bundt cake involving dry frosting mix. I'm not referring to that recipe -- my description is of a filled angel cake.
Let us know what you decide!
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I was afraid that was the answer about chocolate white mountain. If it were possible I imagine I would have seen a recipe for it.
Do we have the same orange Betty Crocker book? I remember seeing the tunneled out angel food.
I have no experience w/ slicing an angle vertically....but lots of experience w/ leaning cakes. Thats why I always keep wooden skewers handy. They shore up all my layer cakes like a champ. I clip them off just above the cake w/ a pair of garden snippers and frost over!
I'll be sure to post the results tomorrow. Thanks so much for taking the time to help.
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I can't imagine a frosted angel food cake. I think it would sort of defeat the wonderful lightness you've accomplished. But, when I was a kid, we used to have chocolate angel food cake (made with cocoa powder) heaped in the center with chocolate-flavored whipped cream, as well as a bowl on the side with yet more cream. Or, if not chocolate-flavored, then perhaps plain whipped cream with mini-chips blended in.
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Too late now, but strawberry shortcake concept is great with angel food cake. Take a slice, pour some milk over it (as my mom did) to "soften it up," surround with sliced strawberries, and swirl some whipped cream on top... great memories, except I think my mom used to use those store-bought yellow cake things that sit next to the boxed strawberries in the store. Different, but good with angel food too...
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So... I split horizontally and arranged halved cherries on top of first layer. Used the cherry juice that pooled up under the cut cherries in place of some of the water in my merengue recipe (secretly sneeked in a tiny drop of red coloring to help it along). Frosted(over the cherries too), topped w/ a few cherries, and then started drizzling melted chocolate on top. Add sparkler birthday candles.
Critque: The cherries were a good idea. They cut the sweetness and the monotony of white(ok,pale pink) on white. Cooked momentarily w/ a little Chambord would have probably been even better, but might have wet down the icing too much. I had a bit of a problem w/ the icing. Our humidity was 90% yesterday, I had not had a problem w/ humidity and confectionery in many years, but yesterday, I didn't think the 7 minute frosting would EVER get thick. And when it finally did, it thickened all at once and became way TOO thick. I'm lucky it didn't go grainy. Good thing I had the chocolate and cherries to disguise it's deficiencies. All in all, though, the cake was good and I'm glad I didn't make anything buttery given the richness of those GORGEOUS filets we had from Lobel's.
Thanks all for your input.
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THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU, for posting your results. So many posters ask questions and never tell us what the outcome was. Glad your celebration was fun! ...and the cake sounds delicious.
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